The latest plans to redevelop the former Pentlepoir CP School site will now be determined by Pembrokeshire County Council’s planning committee, not planning officers, after local member Clr. Jacob Williams called-in the application.

New plans to turn the site into a caravan and mobile home sales yard were due to be decided by planning officers under delegated powers, but East Williamston County Councillor, Jacob Williams, successfully argued at the authority’s planning delegation panel that the case should be decided by the planning committee of elected councillors.

The school, which closed down in 2006, was abandoned in a state of disrepair for many years by the county council which sold the site in 2014 to local company G. D. Harries & Sons Ltd, who demolished the building soon after.

The latest application, submitted by Broughton Leisure Ltd, is titled: ‘Change of use of land for the purposes of the sale and display of mobile homes and erection of associated reception/office/café and warehouse buildings.’ Supporting information states Broughton Leisure has an agreement to purchase the site from G. D. Harries if consent is granted.

Clr. Williams, a former pupil of the school, says this is the second battle he’s faced to get redevelopment plans for the site determined by planning committee councillors, instead of planning officers.

Plans submitted by G. D. Harries in late 2014 to develop the site for a housing estate were subsequently approved by the planning committee, with several conditions - but only after Clr. Williams had negotiated what he called the authority’s ‘arcane planning delegation panel.’

He said: “In some councils, the local member can simply refer a planning application to the planning committee, but in Pembrokeshire he or she has to submit a call-in document explaining why. This then goes before a small committee of councillors who also hear the views of planning officers, before deciding whether the application should remain delegated to planning officers or go to the planning committee. So effectively I’ve had to argue before a committee that the application should go to committee!”

Since being elected councillor for East Williamston in 2012, Clr. Williams has negotiated the planning delegation panel three times, where he says on each occasion he has met resistance from council officers objecting to his call-in requests.

“I must admit I was quite satisfied to maintain my 100 per cent success rate with this one. On all three of my call-in attempts, I’ve managed to persuade the delegation panel’s councillors to overturn the council’s unelected senior officers who have always opposed my attempts to take the applications out of the hands of their planning department. I’m delighted they came down on the side they did.”

Last week’s delegation panel meeting, where councillors voted 3-1 in favour of Clr. Williams’s call-in request, can be viewed on PCC’s webcast archive at www.pembrokeshire.public-i.tv.

On the latest redevelopment proposals for the former school site, Clr. Williams told the Observer: “The plot is almost entirely surrounded by properties or gardens backing onto the site, so there is understandably some concern from neighbours about the proposed commercial use of this land which nobody had ever guessed would be developed for anything other than housing.

“I am well aware of residents’ concerns not just from speaking to some of them in recent weeks but from the 2014 application for housing too. I’m a member of the planning committee and will voice my constituents’ concerns and try my best to obtain reassurances that, if this development goes through, it will have as little impact as possible.”

The application, reference 16/0678/PA, is on the agenda of PCC’s next planning committee meeting, beginning at 10 am on December 13 at County Hall, Haverfordwest.

Clr. Williams said: “As with all council meetings, it’s open to the public and will also be live video-streamed and subsequently archived at the council’s webcast site. If anybody wishes to get in touch with me please don’t hesitate to call 812999 or email [email protected].”